Truck For Sale

Everyday I look for reasons to renew my faith in humanity and am almost always disappointed. This week was no exception. It started when I put my old GMC truck up for sale. The very first call I received on my voicemail went something like this:

A-hole: Yeah, what's up with this truck?
A-hole: I want to know the year and what's wrong with it.
A-hole: Hello...?
A-hole: You must not be home.
A-hole: Well then screw you!...click.

Very nice, sir. Patience is a virtue, but you must not have time for virtues? I guess he hasn't a clue about voicemail either? Oh well, who has time to dwell on such trivial matters?

So by day two there is a guy who agrees to my asking price, saying the vehicle is everything he is looking for. I take him completely through the truck and tell him every little problem I can think of, to which he seems much obliged. I even offer to get a new muffler on it since I have a lifetime warranty, if he wants to cover the costs. He then asks if I will have the pickup inspected also. I am hesitant to put money into the vehicle but he assures me he will pay for the improvements. He asks if I would like a down payment but I tell him he looks trustworthy and that it wasn't necessary. I spend two hours of my time getting the muffler and waiting for new parts needed to pass the inspection, while spending nearly $200 out of my own pocket. When the guy comes over to pick it up, we fill out the title and he hands me a check. When he asks for the keys I tell him I will need to wait until the check clears before I can give him the vehicle. He grabs the check from me and says if "I don't find him trustworthy enough to take his check, drawn on an account that could buy the truck ten times over, then I am not trustworthy enough to buy it from and that he doesn't want it." Do I have "sucker" written on my face or something? You can fuck right off, sir. Plus you entered a contract and have signed the title so you will lose in court if I choose to sue your cocky, self-centered ass. He agrees to pay for the new title, with A CHECK! I tell him I don't need his measley check, that I have enough in my checking account to buy a new title a thousand times over, and get off my property. That felt good.

So now I'm out a few hundo and need to retitle the vehicle. I do the DMV thing and put the "for sale" sign back in the window. I later get a phone call at work from a young kid interested in buying and he does a pretty good job of lowballing me. If I had only listened to my voicemail before talking to him I would have heard his offer of a few more hundred dollars, but what can you do? I let him take it for a test drive and I can hear him two blocks away grinding the gears trying to get it in four-wheeled drive, obviously ignoring my detailed instructions. Oh well? When the kid returns he wants the truck. He gives me a hundred bucks to show me he is serious and then asks for the rest of the keys. I ask him why and he responds "to take my new truck home." What? I just laugh to myself. Since the kid paid me mostly in fives and ones I tell him he can take it home if he puts down half of the money now and the other half when the new title arrives. He comes back with $200 more dollars, which I take, give him a receipt, and then he asks if he can use the license plate off of my other vehicle to drive the truck home? Holy shit, I think to myself. What planet are these morons from? I just walk away. An hour later he calls me and says he will have the rest of the money when the title arrives. Yeah, no shit you will.

I am thinking I just might put the new truck in the garage and drive the old one through the winter. It would much more satisfying to even burn the damn thing than to deal with these dolts who haven't the slightest clue about how business works. Match, anyone?